


Item

by LittleSammy



Series: Item [1]
Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSammy/pseuds/LittleSammy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby thinks there's something going on between Tony and Ziva. Tony thinks she's wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Item

"Hey! Get your own!" Ziva slapped his hand and shoved him back when he leaned over and tried to snatch an olive from her plate, and he grinned at her with all the DiNozzo charm he could muster up while his other hand reached for the plate again.

She did see that one coming, and with a move so fast _he_ didn't see it coming, she grabbed two of his fingers and pulled his hand away, bending his arm backwards.

"Ow ow owwww!" 

Tony's whimper of pain was so epic that it made her smirk, and while she was distracted, his free hand grabbed an olive and popped it into his mouth.

He spent the next two minutes alternately grinning the most smug grin that could possibly fit onto his face... and wincing every time she squeezed his fingers and bent them back just that little bit further.

*** *** ***

"No way! Show me!"

Without waiting for his reply, Ziva leaned over to sneak a glance at his phone and the picture of Gibbs in a most unfortunate position he had taken two days earlier. Her hand came to rest on his leg instead of the seat of his chair, and he turned the phone so she could see the snapshot. After a few moments of twisting his back, Tony leaned into her instead to share the view, his hand moving to rest on the small of her back.

He caught Abby's eye just when he began to lunge into a detailed explanation of how he had accomplished the snapshot, and the intense frown fixed on him made his voice falter. Ziva turned her head at his sudden loss for words, then drew back a bit because she was too close to his cheek to actually get a good look at him.

"Uhm," he said, confused, blinking and meeting Abby's stare that didn't waver one bit while she searched for something in his face.

And one never-ending second later, the Goth turned her head as if nothing had happened at all and told McGee something really longwinded that sounded so techy it let Tony suspect that she was trying to turn the Probie on.

"Anyways," he continued, and only then he realized that his hand was still resting on Ziva's back and hers still on his thigh.

*** *** ***

They all went clubbing after they were done with dinner, and even though Ziva never danced with him, they rarely lost each other on the dance floor. He wasn't sure if they were just so attuned to each other by now or simply so used to watching out for each other that it became natural to look for what their partner was doing at all times. Whatever it was, it kept them grinning at each other whenever the dance threw them into a turn that made their eyes meet. After a while, they even developed a little game around it, trying to match each other's moves while dancing away with other partners.

He lost a slim blonde when she caught him meeting Ziva's eyes over her shoulder, and at the same time she was abandoned by a guy who accused her of trying to lead the whole time.

It left them standing in the middle of the dance floor, looking slightly baffled and feeling silly while they were watching their respective dance partners retreat. Then their eyes met, and it felt like the natural thing for him to go over and offer his hand to Ziva. She cocked her head at him, a sly grin to match his own curving her mouth. Then she took his hand, and he spent the rest of the song (and the next two, really) whirling his partner around.

She didn't try to lead once.

*** *** ***

He came back to the table balancing fresh drinks to find the men chitchatting about joysticks while Abby glared at Ziva accusingly. The Israeli was busy sipping at her Margarita, pausing only to lick the salt off the edge of the glass just when her friend's voice rose above the steady drum of the music.

"You didn't tell me."

"Tell you what?" Tony interrupted while he tried to set the drinks down without spilling any. He glanced at Ziva, but she kept staring at her own glass and pretended she hadn't heard him. He turned his head and looked at Abby, handing her a freshly filled glass. "What?"

Abby leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms in front of her chest and looking up at him with narrowed eyes and the same accusation in her expression that she had directed at Ziva.

"That you are an item."

Palmer's drink slipped out of Tony's hand just when he tried to hand it to the autopsy gremlin, spilling its contents all over the table. Ziva coughed into her Margarita and gasped for air while Tony stood frozen, hand still extended even though the contents had been dropped.

"We are _what?_ "

"I'm not paying for that," Palmer said, wiping fluid off his pants.

"An item," Abby clarified, her eyes now small slits while she judged his expression. "As in, being more than partners? Spending quality time together? _Dating?_ "

He blinked, then turned to look at Ziva. "Who told her we are dating?" he asked her, and she shrugged, setting down her glass carefully. He sat down hard on the stool beside Ziva's, looking baffled. "We're not dating. Having food and drinks with friends does not constitute as dating."

Abby glared at him. "Tony, I have been watching you two all evening," she said dangerously low, and the look she gave him meant that this was clearly supposed to explain everything.

He glanced at McGee, who shrugged and raised his hands in defeat. Ziva refused to meet his eyes and kept running her finger over the edge of her glass. Palmer... oh, well, Palmer had completely missed what was going on and kept wiping at his pants.

Finally, Tony leaned forward, his arms resting on the edge of the table. "Abby. We are _not_ dating," he said carefully, putting a different emphasis on every single word, and when she opened her mouth to object, he raised his hand and continued, "Nor are we spending inappropriate, non-work-related time together, nor are we an... _item_ , of any kind."

Abby's eyes stayed narrowed while she kept searching his face. Then she nodded.

"Okay. I wouldn't trust Ziva on this because she lies without breaking a sweat, but you're not bright enough to fake surprise like that."

"Thank you. Now, whoever..." His voice trailed off while her words sank in, and with McGee snickering and Ziva grimacing beside him, he felt a certain outrage rise in him. "Hey!"

"Point proven," Ziva murmured, her pink tongue flicking out to lick more salt off her glass, and he glared at her.

*** *** ***

He certainly wasn't bright enough to let it go.

He was still thinking about it when he walked her home, and maybe he'd had one drink too many, but he couldn't help it and blabbed his mouth, asking her how Abby could seriously think that they were an... _item_.

"We are often close, physically," she replied with a shrug, but she was a bit drunk, too, and she'd been careless, so he had seen the way her shoulders tensed for the tiniest bit at his question. When his brain caught up with what that meant, he froze on the sidewalk.

Ziva turned her head, waiting for him to catch up, and when he didn't follow her, she sighed. "You should not worry about it too much. It was a misconception, that is all."

"I don't worry," he said, and when she moved on, he reached out and grabbed her hand, holding her back. "I'm just wondering."

She stared down at his fingers, wrapped around hers, and something happened in her face that he hadn't expected and that he couldn't quite place. And whatever it was, it made him tug her closer. She jerked at the movement and tried to pull away, but he was strong when he wanted to be.

The last few inches almost turned into a fight between them, and so he pulled harder until she lost her balance and ended up almost pressed up against his chest. Her breathing picked up speed, and his own eyes widened because unlike when they had been dancing, he felt self-conscious all of a sudden, not sure where to put his hands, because what exactly was going on here, after all?

And then Ziva sighed and relaxed against him, just like that, and her eyes met his with mild amusement and something else sparkling in it. She raised the hand that wasn't trapped in his until she could press it to his chest, fingers spread out and flexing slightly against his muscles. And like always when he was this close to her unexpectedly, it stirred something that was most of the time mostly asleep deep inside him. Something that urged him to get even closer to her now.

It made him look at her mouth, the slightly parted lips, and yes, she was tempting, just like she had always been. But the longer he stared at her mouth, the closer he leaned towards her, the more he realized that it wasn't just because she was tempting in general. 

The sleepy beast inside him turned its head lazily and then snapped fully awake for the first time, roaring in his veins all of a sudden.

"Shit," he murmured, feeling her lips almost brush his, her breath warm on his cheek. Her hand, still flat against his chest, tightened, almost caressing him, and he realized with a start that - despite all the different ways she had violated his personal space over the years - she had never touched him quite as intimately. "She was right?"

Ziva laughed softly, a warm chuckle against his lips. "Do not freak out now, Tony," she said, her hand patting his chest gently. Then she stepped out of the almost-embrace and started walking again.

He blinked, utterly confused and mildly aroused. Then he caught up with her, staring at her under furrowed brows, wondering how she could be as relaxed about this.

"How come you're not freaking out?" he asked, and she smiled while she dug a hairband out of her pocket and pulled her curls back into a ponytail.

"I already freaked out the first time I fell in love with you," she said, then hooked her arm into his. "It comes easier after a while."

"Whoa, wait a second. When did we switch from being an item to being in love?"

"Did we have to switch?" she asked calmly, and he blinked.

"We didn't?"

This was all too much and too fast for his befuddled brain. Yes, she could be right, sort of, at least he thought she could, but to a man like Anthony DiNozzo both realization and acceptance were equally hard to grasp concepts, and so it took him a bit longer to wrap his mind around it.

And while he was still trying to feel shocked about this whole turn of events - and for some reason failed - he played back her words once more and stopped dead in his tracks again, this time pulling her to a halt with him because she still had her arm resting in the curve of his.

"The first time?" he said. "There were more?"

She looked at him with a weird expression on her face, and he hadn't expected that one also. It stirred something inside him, and that something made him want to do crazy things like sit on the beach with her and watch her read a book. Or share ice cream with her in candlelight. Or just lean over and kiss away that strangely knowing look, that hint of sadness.

Maybe that was the moment when he realized that he was already in much deeper than he had thought he could be. That there had always been so much more between them than blatant attraction, much more than mere friendship even. He took a deep breath and started walking again, and his heart was pounding away fiercely all of a sudden and chasing the alcohol out of his bloodstream.

"So. What now?" he asked, and he had to admit that he was a little afraid of the answer.

Ziva, though, just chuckled softly. "I don't know, Tony. What is it you usually do when you are in love?"

"Harr-dee harr harr," he grimaced, and that made her laugh out loud while she leaned closer to him at the same time. Snuggling up against his arm. He turned his head and watched her profile, taking in how relaxed her mouth was, and once more he tried to panic at the enormity of it all and came up with nothing but mild flutters.

"You're gonna make me woo you now?" he asked, his eyes narrowing in mock suspicion, and she chuckled again, slipping her hand into the pocket of his jacket and threading her fingers through his.

"I wasn't, but it does have a nice ring to it," she replied, winking at him.

*** *** ***

Her apartment building came up too soon for his liking, and he felt like he could have walked a few more miles with her, just for enjoying her closeness. He turned towards her, watching her expression carefully. And then he shook his head at what he saw, grinning.

"Right, wooing, I remember. So you're not gonna let me come up tonight."

"No," she confirmed with a slight smile curving her lips. "But if you are good, I will kiss you goodnight."

"I'm good," he said, and for some reason his voice sounded low and rough suddenly while his pulse was skyrocketing. "For you, I'm always good. You know that."

He watched her eyes darken at his words, and her fingers tightened around his for a heartbeat. And that was it: The really scary moment when something moved from being a theoretical musing to something tangible and frighteningly real. The moment when he had to accept what was going on.

He felt clumsy when he leaned towards her, worse than even in his teenage days, and he had brief horror visions of missing her mouth completely or drooling all over her or, worst of all, the tension that had been piled up between them over the years just poofing because it just wasn't any good after all, or...

Touch. Soft heat against his lips. Warm breath flowing over them and making a shudder run through him. Salt and a hint of tequila on those lush, willing lips, tickling his tongue and making him dizzy and his knees go weak. She gasped when he backed her up against the door out of reflex, and for just a second she tensed and he thought she might push him away. Then her arms came up, one to wrap around his neck, the other around his waist to pull him closer.

She moaned his name into his mouth, and that sound was enough to make him lose himself completely in her embrace, in the way she met his kisses, the way her grip tightened on his shirt when he pressed his body into her. His hand, sliding under her shirt and over bare skin, made her arch into him, and his heart pounded in his throat at her heated, unrestrained reaction to making out with him like that.

God, yes, they were literally making out in the middle of the street. And he had his hand under her shirt, and her lips were on his, and she was making those hot little sounds into his mouth that almost sounded like sex already, and shit, they could be seen by everyone walking by, and...

And he didn't care. At all.


End file.
